Louie Gohmert Suggests Defunding Executive Branch to Punish Obama

Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who is infamous for saying egregiously stupid things, thinks he has the Obama administration by the balls, saying Thursday that “if the administration is not going to be forthcoming with information about the IRS, then it may be necessary to defund part of the executive branch until such time as they become truthful.”

My first thought was of how many times Republicans have thought they had Obama by the balls only to discover it was he who had their nuts in a vise, and my second was, at least he was not complaining about Obamacare.

One has to take such small blessings as are offered, after all. In case you don’t know, this is a big deal: On Wednesday, Gohmert admitted that 10-12 Republicans meet weekly to plot against Obamacare.

Gohmert, who seems to have an Aaron Burr-like hard-on for Barack Obama (Burr just hated Thomas Jefferson), is convinced that Obama is using his powers to attack his opponents (as opposed to the Republicans using their power to attack their opponents, which is essentially a 24/7 job for Republicans).

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The Texas Republican took to the House floor to read a Wall Street Journal editorial about the IRS and concluded, “It certainly appears that the IRS was weaponized for the political purpose of one party, which would, of course, be one of the worst nightmares for the Founders of this country.”

Weaponized…Like Republicans have weaponized the House of Representatives to attack women, children, minorities, voters, the elderly, and others? That kind of weaponized?

And then there is the little issue that the Founders did not much like the idea of any political parties at all. But having invented a premise, Gohmert, in true Beckian style, warmed to his conspiracy theories and went flat-out, full-bore stupid on America.

Watch courtesy of the National Journal:

When one party in power in the executive branch can weaponize its federal agencies against its political opponents, unless it is stopped, this little experiment in democracy will come to an end.

Other than the fake IRS scandal, Gohmert also wants “truth” about other invented Republican scandals, the so-called Fast and Furious scandal and Benghazi, which is not about Benghazi at all but about stopping Hillary Clinton.

And not stopping there, he brought up a scandal invented by Breitbart.com, that home of invented scandals, a claim that the Obama administration violated international law by shipping weapons “into or out of Libya.”

If individuals within this administration then violated the international law that they pushed to create, then they probably need to be careful when they’re traveling in years after they leave the White House or the administration efforts, because, who knows, might get an indictment somewhere in one of these international tribunals saying, “You’ve violated the U.N. law you passed!” You got guns into or out of Libya. You violated the law.” People in this country need to understand that participating in the making of laws, and the participating in the violation of laws have consequences.

Oh dear.

So how this works is that, 1) the Republicans invent a scandal, then, 2) insist the White House tell them the truth about something that never happened and, 3) if they refuse (which they will, because what can you say about something that never happened?), they will defund the executive branch and put the president out of business.

I think Republicans have warmed a little too much to the whole torture myth, that if you apply enough pressure people will tell you the truth. What they tell you is what you want to hear, so that you stop torturing them.

Gohmert has a lot to learn about Barack Obama. It is a complete mismatch: a small-minded bigot confronted with an opponent far out of his league intellectually.

Well, Gohmert won’t be the first Texas Republican to have this problem:

Gohmert may well by, as Hunter at The Daily Kos opined, “the dimmest bulb in a collection of dim bulbs” but the question is, is he dim because he actually believes this stuff or because he expects everyone else to believe this stuff?

Gohmert is a demagogue. He is not interested in truth because Gohmert has to know very well, unless he is even less intelligent than we are willing to credit, that these so-called “scandals” are Republican-generated and have no relationship with reality. He knows he is demanding information the White House can’t possibly give.

But hey, that’s what demagogues do: grandstand. Gohmert put on his big show, made himself a hero to the cray-cray fringe that is the Republican base, and in all likelihood he thinks he scored some meaningful, even game-changing points on some ledger or another.

Let’s face it, even a dim bulb can be a danger to democracy. Especially when there are a whole lot of dim bulbs and they control the House of Representatives